3

They left a brief note for their parents:

Something came up – we went back to Japan.

Adiosu,
Yamato & Sora


"Welcome to Hill Air Force Base. I'm Sergeant Jack Bodeski, and I'll be conducting your tour today."

As the young marine began to drone on, Matt took a moment to look out the bus window.  Compared to the security checkpoints that had been put in place for the Olympics, the air force was remarkably lax.  He had remembered someone at one of their parents boring events talking about it – "It would be child's play to get into a bomber's cockpit."  So Matt and Sora had hatched a plan to prove him right.

Bodeski was leading them off the bus.  "The F-15 is the back bone of the United States Air Force. They're piloted by the best pilots outside of the special services.  If you'll follow me, you'll be able to get a look at one up close."

Amid the oohs and aahs, they slipped away, into a briefing room.

"This might be easier than I thought," Matt said absent-mindedly, "But I still wish Izzy were here. He could hack into their computer, get us a schedule of flights to Japan like that."

"You mean like the one written on the white board?" asked Sora.

"Exactly," Matt replied.

Matt and Sora exchanged unease glances as they huddled in the works of high-speed transport due to leave for the airbase in Kumamoto in just a few minutes.

"What's happening?" Sora asked quietly.

"The passengers are boarding," Matt replied, "And...Oya! One is a general!"

"Really?" Sora asked.

Matt nodded, then put his finger to his lips. The sound of people entering the cabin floated through the air. Moments later, voices could be made out.

"All right, Lieutenant, what's the schedule like?"

"Takeoff in thirty, sir – ETA for Kumamoto is eighteen hours, thirty minutes.  And there's a briefing on the Chinese situation before we leave."

"Well, don't just sit there. Get on with it."

"Aye, sir.  Charlie?"

"Good afternoon, General, Majors, Captia--"

"Cut to the chase, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir.  Before we begin, a reminder – this briefing contains codeword classified NSA information and top secret CIA and NASA information.  Those of you on the crew of this aircraft are asked to take a smoke break.  Only the flight crew is coming with us – cargo handling operations are suspended for this flight only."

As you know, the Chinese are claiming an American satellite has crashed into the yellow sea.  That is not what happened."

Forty-seven hours ago, our satellites and monitoring stations picked up the sudden appearance of two large objects in Earth orbit – both almost a kilometer long, less than a hundred fifty meters across.  This profile does not occur in nature. Before we could identify these objects, one of them entered Earth's atmosphere. It fell into the Yellow Sea, between China and the Korean peninsula, sinking a Korean battleship.  Space Command believes these objects to be orbital facilities built by the Chinese or Russian governments."

"Does anyone really have the technology to build stations half a mile long?"

"Officially, no. But unofficially, the United States already has a two hundred meter long structure in orbit. That is why we believe these stations were Chinese, and that Beijing is attempting to prevent an investigation of the crash."

"How?"

"They'll hold the threat of hostilities with Japan over us.  If we attempt to send a team in, they'll accuse us of trying to recover illegal technology.  Officially, the US can't go within a hundred klicks of the Yellow Sea.  Naturally, the sub Hawthorne just disappeared from it's berth in the Kumamoto naval yards—"

"But you would never tell me about a black ops mission."

"Of course not.  As I was saying, if we publicly got anywhere near that wreck and proved it was Chinese,  They'd lose any diplomatic ties with the United Nations. One of the prime conditions of UN membership is full disclosure..."

"Of all space capabilities, yes.  But we can't send a UN team in, or a third-party observer in, to prove it's Chinese tech, can we?"

"No.  If word gets that the Chinese have that type of tech, the public will demand that the U.S. catch up – we'll have to reveal some of our orbitals.  But it's all one program, when we declassify the observation posts, the weapon platforms and lunar evacuation posts become public knowledge as well."

"And the government's response to the missile strike on Japan—"

"Is none of our business.  Understood?  We act on whatever orders they give us.  In the meantime, make sure we don't leave for Tokyo without a good in-flight movie."

"What type of movies do you like, General?"

"Action movies."

Disclaimer

As I continue to rewrite this, I'm surprised by some of the plot turns I had forgotten.  I have decided I'm going to leave in all of the most unlikely and impossible devices, such as the way Matt and Sora return to Japan.  But I'm going to distract you by making the next chapter about space aliens.

So there.